Overview xiii COMETS IN PERSON 1 A Comet Passes 3 COMETS IN GENERAL 2 Anatomy of a Ghost 27 3 Dirty Snowballs and the Nurseries of Leviathans 51 4 The Spectacular Deaths of Comets 61 5 Swords of Damocles 86 6 Observing and Discovering Comets 110 HALLEY AND THE SHORT~PERIOD COMETS 7 Halley and Its Periodic Kin 133 8 Through the Ages with Halley's Comet 157 COMETS WILD 9 What Makes a Comet Great? 197 10 The Comets Before 1700 204 11 The Comets from 1700 to 1995 229 vii viii COMET OF THE CENTURY THE LATEST GREATS 12 The Grand Approach of Comet Hale-Bopp 273 13 Hyakutake Lightning 291 14 A Narrative Calendar for Observing Hale-Bopp 305 15 Comet of the Century 328 Appendix A: Periodic Comet Numbers 331 Appendix B: Great Comets in History 335 AppendixC: Closest Comets in History 339 Appendix D: Celestial Coordinates 344 Appendix E: Orbital Elements 346 Appendix F: Comet Brightness Formula and Estimating Brightness 348 AppendixG: How to Report a Comet Discovery 351 AppendixH: Ephemeris for Comet Hale-Bopp 354 Glossary 359 Sources of Information 367 Credits 371 Generaiindex 373 Comet Index 381 PRtl7ACt This book may be loaded with a richness of facts, but what it's about, through and through, is simple and blazing: the way comets, throughout history, and up to the present, have stirred the human spirit.